


Tell me, baby

by socknonny



Series: Harringrove Christmas Prompts [4]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Tree, Enemies to Lovers, Hand Jobs, M/M, Rebellion, Teenage Rebellion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-10 23:32:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17435582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/socknonny/pseuds/socknonny
Summary: Steve finds Billy chopping down the worst tree in the entire Christmas Tree Farm.Twelve days of Christmas prompts: tree





	Tell me, baby

**Author's Note:**

> This is the last one I'll do for the Christmas prompts! I just wanted to do more than, you know, two in a collection haha. But now it's time to move onto Harringrove luuuuurve week :D

**December 30th, 1984**

Steve’s breath knocks out of him when Billy shoves him back against the tree. The bark is rough beneath his skin, his shirt riding up at the back so that the tender place where his hip dips into two dimples cops the brunt of the hit. There is a look in Billy’s eye that Steve has never seen before, simultaneously wilder and softer than he has imagined Billy could ever look. 

It reminds him of the first moment they spoke after the fight, four weeks ago at the Christmas Tree Farm. It makes him think of the way his own breath rasps across his throat, the way he can’t seem to walk away from this no matter how bad an idea it may be.

 

**December 17th, 1984**

The Christmas Tree Farm is decked out in the most obnoxious display of tinsel Steve has ever witnessed. Lashings of red and gold circle the gate, dipping below the welcome sign and wrapping around the pillars on either side as they drive through. Jonathan’s eyebrows lift in mild alarm; he hasn’t been here before. The Byers never get a real tree, but this year Joyce insisted.

The forest blurs behind their windows, a sea of white and green and silence. Steve still feels on edge around trees, even though he only fought the monsters in a house and a junkyard. Perhaps in underground tunnels if you count closing your eyes and hoping not to die. There is something about the forest that reminds him there is more to Hawkins than what he used to think. Reminds him he doesn’t really know anything about the world at all.

He clenches his jaw and drives, scans the road, pulls slowly into a park—tries to pretend he isn’t living on autopilot.

“She wanted a big one,” Jonathan says when they get out of the car and scan the lines of trees for somewhere to start. 

His quiet voice is captivating when surrounded by all this snow, the echoes snatched away by the newly soft earth and leaving him sounding as though he’s speaking straight to Steve’s soul. It makes him think of a time when he assumed Jonathan had nothing important to say, when Steve would have steamrolled over his words and laughed along the way. He doesn’t do that now. He listens, because he’s learning the different ways that the people around him speak, how what they have to say is often something he would never have noticed. 

“Why?” Nancy asks, lips pursed and a small frown etched on her forehead. “Your living room’s so—” She stops before she finishes the sentence, eyes wide, but Jonathan isn’t an idiot. 

He smiles at her, tight but genuine, like he knows he’s poor and it’s okay for her to say it. Steve isn’t so sure about that, not anymore. Sometimes the things you say can’t be taken back. 

“I think she’s trying to forget,” Jonathan explains, looking back at the trees and falling silent.

It’s hard to believe the tunnels were only a handful of days ago. Steve wouldn’t have blamed the Byers for pretending the rest of the world didn’t exist and retreating into the relative safety of their own home until the new year. But Joyce has never been one to hide, never one to pander to the expectations or opinions of the rest of the world. Steve admires her for that. And if she wants to turn Christmas into something new, minus the painful memories, without wasting a single second… well, he’ll definitely help her with that. Something in him knows he needs it too.

Steve jerks his head towards the line of trees down the back edge of the farm. “Those are the tallest.”

Nancy’s eyebrows lift. “You’ll have to bend the top to get it to fit!” 

Jonathan breaks into laughter. “Good. That means it’s the biggest. Come on.”

 

**December 30th, 1984**

“Come for me, Harrington.” Billy’s voice is rough and quiet in his ear, masking the sound of Steve’s own gasps.

Steve fights it—stupidly and against his own wishes. It’s this dumbass thing they do, when one of them is getting the other one off; they each struggle for control, when Steve just wants to give in and he’s sure Billy does too. It’s as if they’re so used to fighting, they can’t relinquish it even when they’re… not.

Steve can’t remember the last time they truly fought. He supposes November, but time feels distorted. It’s only been a week since this thing between them started, but he already can’t remember a time when he wasn’t sneaking out of the house to fuck Billy Hargrove.

Billy twists his hand in just the right way, almost massaging Steve’s cock rather than jerking it off, and it’s this that tips Steve over the edge—a hint of tenderness amongst the aggressive desire. He turns his face and captures Billy’s mouth beneath his, holding him by the back of the neck so he can’t break away, can’t throw some stupid comment like  _ kissing isn’t what this is about, Harrington  _ into his face.

Billy attempts neither of these things; instead, he moans and pushes back into Steve, his grip on Steve’s cock relaxing like he’s already forgotten about it, like kissing Steve is eclipsing everything else.

Dropping to his knees, Steve gives him something else to remember.

 

**December 17th, 1984**

The snow deadens their footsteps, cutting their laughter off as they trudge down the final aisle. It should feel isolating, but instead it just feels real. Solid. Like the moment was there and then it was gone, and that makes Steve strangely content. Nothing lingers beyond the present out here, and it makes it easier to let go of his thoughts as they come instead of holding onto them and drowning in the echoes.

The space between him and the other two grows larger, and he doesn’t bother trying to reduce it. It’s not that he has an issue with tagging along—he isn’t a third wheel, not with these two—but they’re happy in their world and he’s happy in his, and at least this way none of them are lonely or wondering if the missing one is all right. 

That’s something he’s noticed, since this second lot of Upside Down garbage. He can’t relax unless he knows where everyone else is, if they’re safe. He sees it in Nancy and Jonathan’s eyes, too—the frantic scanning of a room, counting heads, studying faces to make sure everyone is who they say they are. He can’t be around the kids all the time, but if the three of them are together and all of the kids are together, it’s easier to keep track. 

A noise distracts Steve from the comfort of his thoughts, and he looks up just as he’s passing a cross section of aisles. Down the far end, a familiar figure is kicking the base of a tree, studying it while a thin plume of smoke drifts above him from the cigarette between his fingers. 

Steve glances at the other two, but they’re busy comparing trees, and he ducks down the narrow path towards Billy Hargrove. The crunch of his boot in the snow makes Billy look up, but Steve thinks he knew Steve was there long before that. There’s no surprise in his eyes, only a calm inevitability. 

“Harrington,” Billy says, looking him up and down. “What a nice surprise.”

The bite is still in his voice—it never left, even after the events of November—but the challenge is missing. Steve can’t understand why he wants it back.

“Isn’t it just?” Steve says, shoving his hands in his pockets and studying the tree Billy is inspecting.

It’s possibly the worst tree in the entire lot. If it wasn’t growing out of the ground, Steve would have assumed it had fallen off the back of a truck. Branches stick out obscurely, following no sense of decorum or aesthetic pleasure, and each has only a handful of pine needles on the end. In the center, there is an entire chunk of foliage missing, and the pile of dropped needles around the base suggest Billy wasn’t gentle when he kicked it.

Steve turns back to him and raises an eyebrow, but Billy is grinning. Startled, Steve blinks and glances back at the tree, wondering if there’s something he missed.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” Billy drawls, kicking the base once more. Several more needles drift down. 

“Ummm.”

Billy ignores him, stepping back and gesturing broadly with his hands, the cigarette still drifting smoke between them. “Picture this, Harrington. It’s mid-December, your dad has never given a shit about Christmas before, but then—” he points at Steve, eyes flashing with a hint of violence, “—you come home drunk. Now, that’s not exactly unusual behaviour, Harrington, let’s be real.” He laughs, the sound fake and deep and sending shivers of  _ something  _ through Steve’s gut. “But this time, it’s different. This time, your step-mom’s been crying about family traditions.  _ This  _ time you’re even more of a disgrace than usual because it’s  _ Christmas _ . So  _ this  _ time—” he kicks the tree again, “—you’re told to leave the fucking house the next morning and come back with a tree or not at all.” He lifts his eyebrows, mock-surprised. Then, he gives a wolfish grin. “How does this one look, Harrington? Think daddy will be impressed?”

Steve turns back to the spindly, pathetic, dying tree, and he can’t help it, he starts laughing. When he looks back at Billy, there is a new expression on his face—equal parts shock and triumph—and then Billy is laughing too. Not much, nothing more than a quiet huff before he brings the forgotten cigarette back to his lips, but it’s definitely there and it changes something between the two of them. 

“Want a hand chopping it down?” Steve asks, but Billy shakes his head, already shrugging out of his jacket to reveal the tight shirt beneath it. 

He must be freezing, but his skin is golden against the white of the snow, and when he picks up the axe from his feet, his muscles ripple. Steve steps back, but he doesn’t leave, just watches as Billy swings the axe again and again and again, chopping down the tree in measured, heavy strokes. 

When he’s done, there is a thin sheen of sweat across his collar, and his eyes glint with something that for the first time is both more and less than aggression. Too slow on the uptake, Steve forgets to hide the fact that he’s watching, that his eyes are roaming Billy’s figure, drinking it in. 

One eyebrow lifts up and Billy’s mouth twitches, just for a second. “Like what you see?”

Steve locks eyes with him, pausing a breath beyond normal so there is no mistaking what he really means before he turns to the pathetic tree and wrinkles his nose. 

“Got to be honest, Hargrove. That is the worst tree I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Billy laughs in delight.

 

**December 30th, 1984**

Listening to the sounds Billy makes when he loses control is the headiest thing Steve has ever experienced. The snow bites into his knees, soaking his jeans, and he doesn’t even care, not when Billy’s fingers are threaded through his hair and the scent of  _ paco rabanne pour homme _ is filling his nostrils.

It’s all so new, he can still count the number of times they’ve done this. Hell, he could probably give a blow by blow playback, each occasion is so deeply etched in his memory. But his favourite moment comes after, when the sweat is cooling on their skin and Steve finally allows himself to smile at Billy—wholly, completely unguarded. It comes when Billy smiles back, a hint of vulnerability in the corner of his lips.

Steve stands up and straightens his clothing, leaning on the tree next to Billy and studying him as he comes down from the high. Billy’s eyes are closed, lips parted as his breathing reluctantly slows.

“What is this?” Steve asks before he can stop himself.

A sinking dread takes up place in his stomach, sharp and nauseating; he’s ruined everything. Now they will have to acknowledge what this is, how terrible an idea it would be to continue. They’ll have to stop, and he never even got to see Billy smile. 

Billy’s eyes snap open, dark and wary. “What do you want it to be?”

There was once a time where Steve would have raced to answer, to be in control, to fulfil an expectation. He’s learned the value of quiet since then, and he waits. He thinks about all the different ways people say what they mean. Thinks about Billy chopping down the worst tree in the Christmas Tree Farm and somehow turning it into an act of rebellion. 

He looks over Billy’s body, slow and measured so there is no mistaking what he means. The look in Billy’s eyes—hot, triumphant—tells him he doesn’t need to say it out loud. 

Steve glances over his shoulder at the spindly, dead tree sticking out from the trailer. There are remnants of tinsel falling from the branches, sad and lonely. Steve wishes he could have seen it in all its glory; Max told him it was truly horrific.

“I want to get rid of this fucking tree.”

 

**December 17th, 1984**

“Look at the star!” Will bursts into laughter, pointing and staring with wide eyes at the Christmas tree proudly standing in the Byers’ living room.

The tree stands at a hefty nine feet, which is a shame, because the ceiling is only eight. Ever practical, Nancy solved the problem by borrowing Will’s slinky and hooking one end onto the top of the tree and the other onto the star. In the slight breeze from the door opening and shutting, the star bobs merrily, the tiny golden lights below it twinkling.

It’s already so different to last year. Steve can look at this tree, these lights, without the familiar swirl of terror rising in his throat. This time, the tree makes him think of laughing with Nancy and Jonathan as the hired trailer swayed behind his car on the way home. It makes him think of buying new lights for the house and throwing the old ones out, of winding foot after foot of golden lights around the tree until there was almost no color left apart from green and yellow.

It makes him think of family and friends, and it doesn’t make him think of death.

One by one, the rest of the kids file into the room and burst into laughter at the sight of the glowing tree with its ridiculous star. Steve can count them, if he wants to, but for once he doesn’t feel the need. He can see it on their faces that everyone is safe, everyone is happy. 

Everyone is right where they should be.

 

**December 30th, 1984**

“Why did you blow me that first time?” Steve asks, hoisting one end of the tree over his shoulder while Billy picks up the other.

Billy frowns. “What the hell kind of question is that?” 

Steve thinks it’s a reasonable one. It was Christmas Eve, and he was killing time down at the quarry, trying to pretend his house wasn’t empty; and then Billy showed up. Steve remembers the moonlight on the snow, golden skin, barbed words. He remembers surrender.

“It was kind of out of the blue,” Steve insists as they drag the tree down to the edge of the forest. 

No one comes to this clearing, and it’s a good place to return the tree to the earth. Something they probably should have done the second they cut it down.

“Didn’t hear you complaining.”

“Not the point.”

They throw the tree down into the ditch, where it hits the ground with a satisfying thud. Several branches snap. It’s a sorry sight, faint pieces of tinsel glittering in the moonlight. Must have looked even sorrier in the Hargrove living room.

Steve looks at Billy and waits for an answer.

After a moment, Billy sighs, his expression softening. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

There’s a look in Billy’s eye, both familiar and oh so rare. Steve thinks if he sticks around, he might start to see more of it, that maybe he might never need to live on autopilot again. 

Billy smiles at him, wholly, completely unguarded for just a second, and Steve smiles back.

  
  
  
  



End file.
